Wells Fargo's account scandal is not limited to its consumer banking sector, U.S. Senator David Vitter told the bank's chief executive in a letter. Thousands of small business owners were also impacted by Wells Fargo's practices, wrote Vitter, in a letter dated Sept. 29 to Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf and seen by Reuters. Around 10,000 small business accounts were affected by improper Wells practices, people familiar with the matter said. [Reuters]

Illinois Becomes Second State to Sanction Wells Fargo

Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs announced the state would sanction Wells Fargo after learning of its fraudulent business practices. California placed sanctions against the bank last week. The State of Illinois will suspend business with the bank for at least one year. Frerichs said the move could cost Wells Fargo "tens of millions" in fees and commissions. However, Wells Fargo said the sanctions will likely cost closer to $50,000. The bank has admitted that two million accounts were opened without customers' knowledge. Employees opened the accounts because they were under pressure to meet sales goals. Senior management allegedly knew about this fraudulent activity. [LowCards.com]

Credit Card Giants Sued over Chip Readers

A judge is allowing small businesses to sue American Express, Discover, Visa and Mastercard for forcing them to adopt chip readers at the checkout counter, a case that could become a multi-billion-dollar class action. The lawsuit takes aim at the nationwide upgrade to chip-based credit cards, an awkward rollout that's been annoying for stores and shoppers. To business owners, it's a raw deal. They were forced to upgrade to expensive machines that reduce fraud but don't eliminate it. If they don't upgrade, they're penalized by the credit card companies. Stores that don't install chip readers are on the hook whenever a shopper swipes a stolen credit card -- a burden previously shouldered by banks. The lawsuit, brought by four grocery stores in California, Florida and New York, calls it an industry conspiracy that violates fair trade practices. [CNN Money]

Chip-Enabled Credit Cards Mark a Bittersweet 1-year Anniversary

One year after the U.S. reached a milestone in its switch to credit cards that require a dip instead of a swipe, the ability to use such cards has dramatically increased. But potential headaches loom heading into the holiday season, with some shoppers complaining that checking out with a chip takes too long and stores continuing to encounter delays getting chip-reading terminals up and running. The pace of adoption has dramatically accelerated. As of July, 88% of MasterCard consumer credit cards in the U.S. were chip-enabled, a 105% uptick since October, while 2 million merchant locations were able to handle EMV transactions. Fraud is also down. According to Visa, counterfeit fraud at merchants able to process chip transactions dipped 47% in May, compared with that same month in 2015. But a shift that the NRF says is costing retailers $30 billion to $35 billion to implement also has its critics. [USA Today]

Costco Earnings Show Credit Card Woes Are in the Past

Switching Costco credit cards from longtime provider American Express to Visa has proven to be the right move for the company. The company reported higher-than-expected profits in Q4, partly thanks to it paying lower fees to its new credit card partner versus its previous one. Many analysts had expected bad news from the retailer partly because of problems caused by the switch to Visa and partly because of the changing retail climate. Instead, the warehouse club delivered earnings of $1.77 a share, up 2% over last year's Q4 earnings. [The Motley Fool]

Federal Watchdogs Issue New Rules on Prepaid Cards

For many GenX consumers and millennials, a prepaid card is a lower-cost alternative to a traditional checking account. So why not require more protections on popular, reloadable plastic similar to protections for checking account holders? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will put new rules in place beginning October 2017, including disclosure requirements about fees and limit on losses consumers can face when a prepaid card is stolen or lost. Soon, there could be a standard form on the back of the package listing how much it will cost you to check your balance at an ATM or how much you would pay per month if you don't use the card for a year or so, and other potential fees. The back of the package might also note that after 30 days, the consumer could be offered overdraft coverage or credit, with fees attached to those transactions. [Detroit Free Press]

Household Debt Rises as Auto and Credit Card Debt See Uptick

Consumers are taking on larger balances for auto loans and credit cards, pushing overall household debt levels higher as consumer confidence levels have also risen. The total outstanding credit card balance is $729 billion, an increase of $17 billion from the first quarter. Credit card delinquency rates have continued to improve since peaking in 2008. [The Street]

American Express Upping Rewards Program for Platinum Card

American Express announced a major enhancement to its widely used Platinum Card, allowing card members to earn five Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on airlines. The change comes as the credit card giant faces some new entrants into the high-end, luxury credit card space, including JPMorgan Chase's Sapphire Reserve card launched this summer to great interest, despite its $450 annual fee. [Associated Press]

Mobile Apps Outpace Mobile Web Commerce for First Time

Sales from mobile commerce are up 40% this year, making it the fastest-growing channel compared to ecommerce's 11% increase year-over-year, according to a new report. Mobile is by far the fastest growing digital commerce channel. Of those sales, mobile apps make up the majority of mobile commerce transactions, coinciding with mobile app visits surpassing mobile Web visits. In the first quarter of 2016, online sales made up 40 billion dollars. Of that 40 billion, 26.6 billion came from mobile and 13.5 billion came from desktop commerce, making mobile the dominant form of online commerce. [Mobile Commerce Daily]

Can Credit Cards with CVVs that Automatically Change Every Hour Kill Off Card Fraud?

A French digital payment security company called Oberthur Technologies (OT) thinks it can do away such card-not-present fraud by changing static CVVs to dynamic CVVs, which change every hour. If a crook gets hold of your card number, his or her shopping spree could last no more than an hour; after the security code changes, the card number would be useless. Instead of a CVV printed on the back of a bank card, the Motion Code CVV would be displayed on an e-paper "mini-screen." The security code would automatically refresh to some random security code every hour. The consumer does nothing different. [Network World]

LowCards.com Weekly Credit Card Rate Report

Based on the 1,000+ cards in the LowCards.com Complete Credit Card Index, the average advertised APR for credit cards is 14.61%, slightly higher than last week's average of 14.62%. Six months ago, the average was 14.80%. One year ago, the average was 14.58%. [LowCards.com]

I have been the Chief Executive Officer of Lowcards.com for the past 15 years. LowCards is a free consumer resource website that covers the credit card industry from every perspective and is the only site that provides data on all 1,000+ cards available in America. We wrote...